The great Marilyn French has died at 79. Many appreciations are appearing this week, see here for more.
Marilyn French is best known for her wonderful — if now dated — The Women’s Room. It’s perhaps the most important novel to come out of what is commonly known as Second Wave Feminism, and it remains a vital, fascinating, at times infuriating text. In 1986, when I was first beginning to think about doing women’s studies and feminist work, a friend of mine recommended the book to me. “Read it”, she said, “and tell me what you think.” I read the book the fall semester of my sophomore year, and was galvanized by it. Much has been made in the obituaries of French’s anger, and there’s little doubt that in many respects “The Women’s Room” is an angry novel. But righteous anger in the face of blind privilege, reckless entitlement, and crushing social norms is no vice — and I found French’s work to be a powerful and damning indictment. At 19, I recognized aspects of myself in some of her less sympathetic male characters — and in no small way, the book contributed to the beginning of my intellectual journey to (at least attempt to) become a different sort of man.
I also loved her Beyond Power, now out of print. One of the first organized discussions of feminism in which I ever participated (if we don’t count sitting quietly in the room while my mother hosted meetings of the League of Women Voters) came in late ‘86, and the topic was French’s then brand-new and dazzling meditation on patriarchy, resistance, and sexuality over the entire course of human history. Most of my younger feminist colleagues who’ve read the book tend to roll eyes or snort derisively when I talk almost worshipfully of French; for some, she’s the very epitome of a certain kind of privileged Second Waver, the sort whose feminism is often alienating to those born long after Watergate. But it’s still on my shelf, and it’s still a terrific text. It’s influenced more than a little of my teaching.
I confess that “The Women’s Room” and “Beyond Power” are the only two Marilyn French works I’ve read. But like most of the books which have served me well, I take great pleasure in re-reading them. I’ll track down some of her more recent novels soon, and urge those who have never read her work to start with her most important and influential offerings.
UPDATE: Jha has a great tribute here.
Women read books written by men and women, I would say in almost equal amounts. Men mainly read books written by other men. Hardly any men read feminist books. But you do - good on you! If more men and women would read and learn more about the other sexes issues and worries, the world would be a much better place.
If you enjoyed Beyond Power, Hugo, you should DEFINITELY get her epic From Eve To Dawn. I feel it really synthesizes the ideas in Beyond Power and applies them to events in women’s history. I’m a third-waver type, but Beyond Power resonated with me more strongly than any other feminist works I’d read before then.
I’ll have a post up on French tomorrow. Do drop in!
I read _Beyond Power_, too, in 1986 while a student in Germany. Galvanizing is right - I had some sleepless nights over it. I made some painfully awkward - and painfully failed - attempts to engage other students about the issues raised in it. But then, I was pretty much a mess that year, anyway. Posters here like Sam Seaborn, among others, tend to remind me of me back then.
I also found it infuriatingly hectoring, but that was the Second Wave for ya. But that was the voice of the time, and I needed it as a corrective and challenge to my thinking.
But man, am I glad for the Third Wave!